


Serving Truth A Little At A Time

by sevenall (orphan_account)



Category: The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-04 01:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12760518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/sevenall
Summary: "She [Rulag] had the engineer’s clarity and pragmatism of mind as well as the mechanist’s hate of complexity and irregularity." -The Dispossessedby Ursula K. LeGuin





	Serving Truth A Little At A Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [edenfalling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).



“Kaolinite,” Palat said, frowning at the clay sample. He sniffed it cautiously, then licked it.

“That’s disgusting,” Rulag said, “give it here.”

Palat smiled and licked it again.

“All the geologists do it.”

“And are you a geologist? I thought so. Give it here.”

Rulag sounded sharper than she had meant to, what with there being still fifty-eight samples to catalogue. No time to fool around if they wanted a hot meal for dinner. She had a few pieces of dried fruit in the pocket of the coat she was using, but no real idea of how long they had been there. Palat handed over the sample.

“I saw the postings for Wide Plains,” he said amiably. “Two for construction engineers, long-term, but I hear one of them was already appointed.”

“Is that so.” Rulag pushed the glasses up, peering closely at the chart. “This location is wrong. We took the deviation route here, towards the quarry. Couldn’t go straight down.”

“Let me see.” Palat came around the table to lean over her shoulder. “Maybe.”

“There is no maybe about it,” Rulag snapped. “I wasn’t asking you.”

Palat laughed, as if there was a joke somewhere. Rulag twitched before she could help it.

“But I am,” he said, suddenly serious. “Asking you, I mean. Take me with you to Wide Plains, Rulag.”

The clay sample went into the container. Rulag sealed and labelled it with a care it surely didn't deserve. 

“DivLab appointments are supposed to be confidential.”

“Oh, come on, Rulag. You’re the best engineer I know. Who else would they post?”

Good question. The materials science research was going nowhere. The lab data were inconclusive and she was running out of theories to test. There was nothing to show after almost a year of work and the Wide Plains community was in need. The math was easy. It usually was, for her. 

“Anyone can apply for an open posting,“ she said. “It isn’t up to me.”

“In this case, I think it might be." Palat spoke very calmly. “I grew up in a place like that, small mining town. Mining and construction is what I do, who I am. It would give me great pleasure to go to Wide Plains and work with you. There’s so much needs doing there and we work well together. But if I go, there'll be a time when I'd like to ask you to partner with me. If you'd rather not be asked, you can tell me now. I'll find another posting, another partner and we'll still be friends.”

Rulag considered what he had said. As the depth of reserve in her tended to elicit a similar reserve in others, she hadn’t felt partnering was an option. And the work came first, always. But Palat understood working, understood silence and he smelled good, like wet leaves and dirt.

“I should tell you, I don’t much care for copulating,” she told him. “But if you want to come with me and if you qualify for the second posting, we can go together.”  


\--

The first months in Wide Plain were spent on site during daylight hours with the geologists, architects and construction crews. The rebuilding solutions weren't obvious and the temporary housing was just that. People were waiting.

The evenings were spent at the Northeast Institute, drafting. Actually, Palat drafted. Rulag sat at the table, stupefied with fatigue. The physical labour she had done in Abbenay hadn't prepared her for this type of sustained effort through weeks and months. Although food was in abundance, it was relatively low-calorie and she found it difficult to eat enough of it to match her output. Of course, she was pregnant, too. The copulation itself hadn't been especially enjoyable, it never was, but Palat seemed mostly pleased and they both wanted the child.

It was hard work and just barely feasible to not resent Palat for thriving in this place. He liked being outdoors, traipsing through the landscape from sunrise to sunset, he got along with everyone and he could eat anything at any time. Fine. He had warned her that he had grown up in a town like Wide Plains, it was hardly fair to be upset about him making jokes and friends. 

She did resent him for busying himself with the simplest parts of the project. In moments when she was just exhausted instead of utterly exhausted, she could acknowledge that he probably thought he was helping. The rest of the time, she was so angry she could hardly look at him fussing over yet another insignificant detail. The core design that Wide Plains needed wasn't there and no real progress could be made until it was. And that, she thought bitterly, was why she had been appointed to the posting. DivLab wouldn't have appointed someone like her if they had thought someone like Palat could do the work.

“I’m going to the domicile,” she said abruptly.

Palat didn't look up, focused on the specifications for the window pane silicon plastic. The same non-shatter material that was used all over Anarres, even in Abbenay, and which decidedly wasn't part of the issue and wouldn't be part of the solution.

“Take something to eat on the way,” he said. “Do you have the scarf you use?”

“Yes and yes.” She tried to smile, tried to remember that he was working hard, too. Applying himself as best he could. “Don’t stay too late.”

“Hm. Whatever happened to “the work comes first”?”

“There is work and there is work,” she said. “I’ll stay in the domicile for a few days, if you think you can manage here.”

“Of course I can. Are you well?”

“Well enough. Just need to time to think,” she said and left.  


\--

Rulag had the engineer’s clarity and pragmatism of mind as well as the mechanist’s hate of complexity and irregularity. While she was capable of assessing complex systems, she preferred to break them down into the smallest possible functional units. Trudging towards the domicile in the icy wind, she found that at least some of these units were within reach. They were facts, simple but significant.

She had been in Wide Plains for three months and was no closer to a functional design than when she had come. She had told Palat she needed time to think, but time wasn't the issue, the thinking was.

The engineering team, including Palat, had one job. She had another, but she had tried to do it by doing the same things as Palat, thus getting the same results. She had lost three months, maybe more, since she had foolishly exhausted herself. The organism was one; the mind could not exist separately from the body. Panicked and angry, she had put herself in a state where she couldn't contribute to the community. She would have to do better.

When she reached the domicile, she went to bed. She slept through the night and the next day. There was food when she woke and she ate as much as she could stomach, then sat down at the desk and studied the project notes as if for the first time. At some point, Palat left for the office, came back, left again. He might have spoken to her or touched her. She didn't notice. The intricate machinery inside her was busy processing the input she had given it and had no attention to spare for mundane details. 

There were constraints and conditions. Probabilities and risks, some of which had already crystallized into certainties. There were physical laws and equations to model and approximate behavior. So much information, so few facts and the gaps so wide. But she understood the problem, she knew the tools and slowly, slowly, the gaps began to close.

When she was done, she got up. It was dark, so she lit the lamp and wrote down the answer in language other people could understand. Two pages, barely, because in the end it was all so very simple. Like water flowing over stones or sunlight striping a wooden floor; you couldn't hold it, but you couldn't lose it either.

Palat came in, carrying food for two. Rulag went to him and touched him in a rare gesture of tenderness. They were partners, colleagues and bedmates, but not always as gentle with each other as they could be.

“It’s done,” she said. “Check the math if you want, but everything is there. I will explain it to you tonight and you can take it to the Federative tomorrow. You're better at explaining to people.”

"Ru, I...," Palat would have said more, but fumbled the dishes he was carrying and said something about excrement instead. Rulag had to smile. He knew, then, what she was sharing.

"Shhh. It's alright," she told him. "The work is to be shared. Let's serve Truth together, but a little at a time."

FIN


End file.
